


evening calm, a certain day, illusion of flowers (ghost in a flower)

by redkarma



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Childhood Friends, Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Slice of Life, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:20:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29147334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redkarma/pseuds/redkarma
Summary: Doyoung has always been fascinated by flowers, the colors, language and symbolism. But flowers wither and die. Jaehyun finds every way to make them permanent.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	evening calm, a certain day, illusion of flowers (ghost in a flower)

**Author's Note:**

> _unbeta'd_

_ I wonder if you’ve forgotten that summer— We were sitting beneath the shadows of the trees, eating ice cream and waiting for the wind. _

  
  
  


Jaehyun was nineteen, Doyoung was twenty. Jaehyun vaguely remembers that summer, hot and bright, like the orange hair color that Doyoung sports ever since their vacation had started.  _ It doesn’t suit him _ , he thinks, but Doyoung remains cool and attractive in his eyes. Jaehyun gazes into nothing from where he’s sitting by the stairs on Doyoung’s veranda, sketchbook pressed against his folded legs for support, palms sweaty as he grips his pencil against the paper. He could feel beads of sweat forming on his back and his slightly curled locks sticking against his forehead as he goes back on his sketch, remnants of graphite staining his hands.

“Hey, Jaehyun.”

Doyoung approaches him, hovering over Jaehyun’s shoulder to watch him draw. Doyoung presses himself against Jaehyun’s back with much weight, and Jaehyun is unsure whether the temperature is rising again or his body is experiencing a terrible heat wave.

“It’s hot,” Jaehyun murmurs his complaint, eyes not averting from his paper, trailing each line and stroke he makes as he tries to picture the scene he wants to recreate from memory. “Get off my back, Doyoung,” Is what he says; He’d rather not say out loud that he’s comfortable with Doyoung being pressed on him.

“But I want to see what you’re doing.”

“Look at it when I’m finished.”

“The process is different from the final though,” Doyoung argues, unwilling to unlatch himself from Jaehyun’s sweating back and instead he wraps his arms around the other’s neck, watching Jaehyun draw with both curiosity and fascination. His eyes twinkled in anticipation, recognizing the lines on the paper.

On the contrary, Jaehyun’s brows would knit together into a small frown, lips forming a small pout the more he concentrates on his paper.

They stay like that for a while. It’s such an uncomfortable yet funny sight if it would come from an outsider’s perspective. With their hunched backs pressed against each other in the midday of summer, cicadas' chirping and clicking noises surrounding them—despite all that, Jaehyun and Doyoung never minded. It has always been that way.

“It’s finished—”

Before Jaehyun could hand over his finished piece, Doyoung gets off of Jaehyun’s back and snatches the paper out of his hands. Suddenly, Jaehyun feels cold from the loss of heat despite the stupidly hot temperature. He grasps and gently pulls on the collar of his shirt with his stained fingers in an attempt to fan himself, eyes now hovering over Doyoung.

“It’s pretty,” Doyoung says once he had taken the space beside Jaehyun, his eyes not leaving the illustration. A scene of him holding a book, the usual one that Jaehyun often catches him reading, palm pressed against his cheek while a gardenia flower is tucked behind his ear. It’s not refined but it’s still intricate, and Doyoung could recall the scene from yesterday. It’s not unusual for Jaehyun to be quiet, to gaze, and study his features. 

Jaehyun almost laughs while he picks on the threads of his sleeves as a distraction, unable to stop his lips from stretching out into a shy smile and his ears from going red. He blames the hot weather as his reason for being flustered. “That’s because the subject is pretty.”

Doyoung brushes his fingers across the textured surface of the canvas, tracing every detail with his fingertips, paying attention to the flowers in particular.

“Jaehyun?”

The said male only hums in response. He’s listening to Doyoung despite his thoughts being rambled, almost, but Jaehyun doesn’t miss the hint of both excitement and happiness in his childhood friend’s tone.

“Can you tell me where you saw this flower in particular?”

Jaehyun stops picking on the thread, looks at Doyoung’s face first before his eyes gazing over the flower peeking from his friend’s fingers.

“Oh, that? It’s in your book.”

“Do you know what it means?”

Jaehyun shakes his head gently, now threading his fingers through his slightly matted locks.

“No, not really,” He pauses to look at Doyoung, inspecting how the other’s lashes would flutter with every blink, his cute nose, and soft lips— It doesn’t take long before Jaehyun tears his gaze away, cheeks flushed from staring too long, from thinking of the possibility of maybe something more than what friends should be doing. “I don’t even know what it’s called but I thought it looked really pretty...nice.”

“Mhm, I see,” Doyoung says, lips stretched into that pretty smile Jaehyun always seeks to see, “Thank you, Jaehyun.”

Doyoung doesn’t tell Jaehyun what it means, he tells the name at least.

Jaehyun brings him a pot of gardenias the next day, ears extremely red, telling Doyoung that he asked his mom to buy it for him. Doyoung laughs, amused, cheeks flushed in the same tint that’s coloring Jaehyun’s ears.

“What’s this for…?”

“Nothing,” Jaehyun starts, lips pursed together into a thin line with his eyes averted from his friend. Despite all that, it’s difficult to cease the blush on his features. “I just thought I’d get you these. You’ve been looking at them for a while now.”

“Do you know what it means?”

Doyoung repeats the same question from yesterday, looking as if he caught the stars in his eyes. That’s what Jaehyun thinks the other looks like anyway.

“They hold a lot of meanings, Doie,” Jaehyun says in a quiet voice that Doyoung knows he’s embarrassed after his discovery. He’s aware that Jaehyun won’t tell him what he found out and would keep it to himself for the time being. 

Gardenias could mean anything. Ranging from trust, hope, dreams…  _ secret love _ . Doyoung tries to hold the stretch on his lips, knowing his cheeks would hurt from smiling alone, but he fails and smiles nevertheless. 

After all, Jaehyun wears his heart on his sleeve.

  
  
  


—

  
  
  


Doyoung remembers that time. Doyoung was sixteen, his birthday just passed, and Jaehyun was nothing but excited to give him a gift despite missing for two days. He’s been telling Doyoung how he personally made it for him. This made him excited as well, Jaehyun has always been the artsy and creative kid between the two of them.

They were both different yet similar in ways and it’s what had made them stick to each other, what made them best friends in the first place. Doyoung was skeptical of Jaehyun during their first meeting. Jaehyun was that kid next door that moved from Los Angeles to a small neighborhood in Seoul over a month ago. Wide and excited eyes, soft and supple cheeks that barely showed his dimple, overly excited at whatever Doyoung and his brother does. It was annoying at first but Doyoung grew attached to Jaehyun as time passed.

It didn’t take long for the two of them to get along, now attached to the hip.

In his hands, Jaehyun carefully holds a velvet looking box and inside sits a bright bohemian flower crown. It’s meticulously made, ranging from different sizes and colors of flowers. It’s definitely beautiful and it’s perfect. Doyoung appreciates Jaehyun’s gift but he gets upset and lets a tear roll down his cheek despite holding onto the gift, careful yet tight, in his hand.

Jaehyun has no idea why, frozen in shock as he stands before Doyoung, his eyes are welling up and almost matching Doyoung’s. He thought he’d have the best gift for his friend, knowing how much Doyoung loves his flowers. Jaehyun’s fourteen, confused and panicked.

“T-Thank you…” Doyoung stammers, voice shaking as he wipes off his tears with his sleeve.

He’s crying for one second and then he’s all smiles the next, arms wrapped around Jaehyun’s slightly smaller form to express his appreciation.

“Doyoung, why are you crying?”

“I just… really wasn’t expecting anything like this as a gift.”

Doyoung pulls away from the hug and puts on the crown over his fluffed up raven hair, smile remaining on his lips despite the slightly disgusting mix of tears and snot over his face.

A year later over the summer, he nervously confesses to Jaehyun the meaning behind his tears under the shade of a tree with popsicle sticks on their hands, that earns a breathy laugh. He tells Jaehyun about how impressive the velvet box is, using it to keep important things that he doesn’t want to lose, and how thankful and upset he was with the flower crown; “Because flowers wither and die! They’re really pretty but I can’t keep them forever.”

It’s a great memory to look back on despite the embarrassment.

Especially when Jaehyun smiles wide and says, “Then I’ll find an alternative way to make them permanent.”

  
  
  


—

  
  
  


It started with Jaehyun gathering synthetic flowers.

Doyoung admits that it was nice, but truth to be told, he just didn’t know what to do with them. They made holes in one's pockets and collected dust overtime, Jaehyun stopped bringing him some eventually.

And it wasn’t long before Jaehyun settled for something else—something else that wouldn’t cost him extra, something that he knows he’s especially good at and what Doyoung praises him best.

Things didn't change much. But Doyoung now carries a notebook starring him, with some of Jaehyun's pieces sketched on each page.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading until the end! hopefully this little fic made your day somehow although its unfinished. this was done on a whim around last year based on the song with the same title when it first came out, so it has been sitting in my drafts for a long time, and never got to finish actually writing it. it's supposed to be about some tattoo artist × florist with a different twist to it but i never had the motivation to completely finish it so i'll just leave it here in hopes i find that motivation again shjddhs i don't have that much knowledge on flowers so there's that disclaimer that the meanings might be inaccurate however i did try to check several sources. it was worth a shot and i was learning in the process. i tried my best to incorporate them without ruining the writing so i hope it worked T_T


End file.
